RTE, the operator of the national grid called on the French to reduce their consumption. The consumption was forecast at 88 GW, low compared to the 102 GW peak of 2018. Some of the nuclear power stations are under maintenance, two reactors and a coal-fired power station at Fessenheim had been closed and wind was very weak on Friday.

National Grid is struggling to keep the system balanced as demand rises with colder weather and wind generation is forecast to be low. Britain gets about 8% of its power supply from huge cables connected to Europe. The low electricity supply situation could be compounded by a planned strike by Electricite de France SA workers.

Britain more than halved the carbon intensity of its electricity over a decade to 2017. Racing to “net zero” risks losing political support if expensive. Tackling climate change will require massive amounts of clean electricity to electrify transport and heating. UK electricity demand will double by 2050, predicts Aurora Energy Research.

Biden’s bet on small-scale nuclear. As part of his decarbonisation drive, the president-elect wants to spur development of small modular reactors (SMRs), so that they can help balance the grid alongside surging renewable output. Small-scale nuclear’s biggest rival natural gas can already be ordered off the shelf and constructed quickly and cheaply.

Since 2016 the European Central Bank has adhered to the “market neutrality” principle, which aims to avoid distorting relative pricing of securities by only purchasing them in proportion to the overall eligible market. Mr Weidmann defended the principle and said: “It is not the task of the Eurosystem to penalise or promote certain industries.”

110 billion euros will need to be invested in Germany’s electricity network by 2050 in order to meet the demands of the energy transition, according to a new study. Without these investments, “follow-up costs” of 4.2 billion euros a year could be incurred because of overloaded networks that are not able to absorb renewable-generated electricity.

The rapid growth of the green bond industry is fanning suspicions that some debt is environmentally friendly in name only, encouraging investors to ignore the (green) label and focus on the credentials of the issuer instead. “We don’t buy a bond because it’s green, but because the company is,” said Tom Chinery of Aviva Investors.

Banks are putting pressure on giant oil-and-gas companies to accelerate their renewable strategies. Credit Suisse has partnered with the Climate Bonds Initiative to accelerate the energy transition. The duo has established a pathway for companies to issue “transition bonds” as a bridge between their current business and greener offerings in the future.

The EU has offered its first social bond. The offering was oversubscribed 14 times over. Orders blew past 233 billion euros. It gives new issuers significant incentive to offer their own sustainable debt, companies and sovereign entities. A 14-times-oversubscribed sustainable debt offering also indicates a market that’s structurally underserved.

In the first nine months, new money going into climate-aware funds totalled €37bn out of sustainable fund inflows of €134bn. However, climate change funds can be confusing. There is not yet a standard classification. Iberdrola or Enel are often held in climate change funds though still derive significant revenue from emission-generating activities.

Manually initiated load shedding is a call for people to stop using electricity, at a certain period of time to stop the electricity system collapsing. These kinds of events are becoming more frequent, due to a combination of hotter summers and increased instability due to renewables forming a higher percentage of the electricity mix.

SEB AB expects to be the first to arrange a sustainability-linked bond in the Nordic region. The pipeline of deals would add supply to a market that has struggled to keep up with investor demand. Debt issuance for projects targeting climate neutrality now fall far short of the roughly €290 billion in investments needed annually, according to ECB estimates.